Agricultural Technology and Structural Change

Markus Eberhardt and Dietrich Vollrath

No 2014-21, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: Using data for 128 countries we document low (high) elasticities of agricultural output with respect to labor in economies within temperate (tropical/highland) climate zones. Adopting a standard model of structural change we show that this technology heterogeneity determines the speed of structural transformation following changes in agricultural productivity and population size. Calibration exercises document shifts in sectoral labor allocation and living standards 2–3 times larger in temperate than in otherwise identical equatorial/highland regions for a given productivity shock. Eliminating technology heterogeneity can account for up to one-fifth of the observed differences in aggregate income per capita across countries.

Keywords: agricultural development; technology heterogeneity; agro-climatic environment; structural change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 O11 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eff and nep-gro
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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